Archive for January, 2010
Should the Goal of Immigration Reform be Assimiliation?
11:41 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Media · 62 Comments
6 Jan 2010In an editorial in today’s New York Times, the Gray Lady takes a pro-immigration reform stance but is it for all the wrong reasons?
The editorial centers around two pieces of news. One, third term NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly stated that a priority of his would be pushing for immigration reform.
“We’re committing what I call national suicide,” Bloomberg said on the NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday. “Somehow or other, after 9/11 we went from reaching out and trying to get the best and the brightest to come here, to trying to keep them out.
“In fact, we do the stupidest thing, we give them educations and then don’t give them green cards.”
I’m not quite sure how much of this is pandering to voters. I know Bloomie pushed big time in immigrant communities during his campaign and he surely must feel like he owes us something. Plus, NYC is a city of immigrants and immigration reform remains a huge priority.
The “them” who are educated and denied green cards are students, more specifically known as “DREAMers” for the DREAM Act which attempts to give undocumented students legal status. Currently four DREAMers are walking from Miami to Washington DC.
The group set out Friday to begin a 1,500 mile journey they are calling the “Trail of Dreams,” from Miami’s historic Freedom Tower to Washington, D.C. The goal is to raise support for legislation that would include a path to citizenship for eligible illegal immigrants.
The four, all immigrants themselves, plan to walk the entire distance, no matter the weather. They expect students and other supporters to join them along the way and plan to arrive in the capital May 1, which has become a day of immigrant rights rallies in recent years.
All are top students at local colleges and campus leaders. Some are now here legally, some are not. All say they are willing to take the risks that come with bringing attention to the plight of students who, like themselves, were brought to the U.S. as children and are now here illegally.
Mala’s Miercoles Morning Movie : Sin Nombre
7:40 am By Maegan La Mala · Movies · 2 Comments
6 Jan 2010I mentioned that over the holiday I spent alot of time watching movies. One film that I watched was
- Sin Nombre
. There are pretty much two stories rolled into one film. We have the story of Sayra, a Honduran teenager who reconnects with her estranged father before heading to el Norte, the United States. Then we have the story of Casper, a member of the Mara Salvatrucha who also ends up heading North, but to escape his violent past, not to chase the “American dream”.
Familiar with immigrant experiences and Latino street organizations, nothing in the film really surprised me: not the brutality of the Maras nor the brutalities of crossing multiple borders. What the brutalities lacked though were context. We never see why a young boy, nicknamed “Smiley” decides to join la Mara under Casper. We hear the usual talk of family and protection from the second in command, Lil’ Mago, pero are not given any reasons as to why why young men in El Salvador and other parts of Central America would choose the Maras. On the other side we never are shown why Sayra and her family chooses to leave Honduras for the United States. Again we are given the narrative of family unity but with no sense of economic or political reasons for migration.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t a bad movie. I empathized with the characters pero I think that part of that was because Sayra’s and Casper’s story wasn’t a new one or unexpected.
Cuban Memory Lane: Teofilo Stevenson
5 Jan 2010I was surfing around my sports stuff today and came across this clip of legendary boxing great, Teofilo Stevenson.
I am a secret fan of boxing. I actually dig the shit out of it, but don’t often admit it because I am, after all, anti-violence etc. Also, lately boxing is not that interesting–there are no real personalities and boxing on the whole seems to be suffering from the same thing every other sport is suffering from: too many people thinking they can do that–and really nobody can. Diluted talent is what I think it’s called.
Watching this old clip made me remember why I love(d) boxing so much. There is beauty in the perfect hit, but even more so, there is humanity in the story of sports. Remember the olden days when the story of a person’s life mattered just as much as his/her successes (or lack of) in sports? And not in a “Tiger Woods is the cleanest and neatest non-Negro” sorta way–but in an earthy-never-gonna-keep-me down sorta way?
Images back during Teofilo Stevenson’s time were not carefully crafted by handlers–but pretty much all that the athlete had outside of his/her skill. The human being still sits underneath the crafted image these days (as Tiger Woods has shown us)–but for some reason we are addicted to the idea that our athletes are perfect beings that make no mistakes. Back in the old days, the mistakes and the situations we didn’t understand and the drama behind the scenes were what made us love them.
I wonder what caused that change. And I want the old days of sports to come back.
JLo Catsuit: Hit or Miss?
2:56 pm By la Macha · Uncategorized · 2 Comments
5 Jan 2010
I don’t watch much television on New Years–honest to god I’m usually asleep before the big bell rings. So I missed JLo being all “revealing” in her catsuit.
And the reactions have been mixed–is she a hideous old lady who looked more like an elephant than a woman? Or a fab supa hot piece of Marc Anthony loving behind?
I think the whole debate is rather humorous myself. J Lo is, like, *so* 90s. But I guess “revealing” your body is as good as a way as any to get people to forget that.
Homelessness Up Among Day Laborers in NYC
11:57 am By Maegan La Mala · economy|Immigration|Labor · 6 Comments
5 Jan 2010According to an article in the NYT (who still thinks it’s ok to use “illegal” as an adjective), homelessness is up among day laborer in Queens.
Mr. Ruano, 38, who had drawn his living from 69th Street and Broadway for six years, has been on the streets since. He and other hard-luck day laborers have slept wherever they can: in the emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital Center, in unfinished buildings abandoned by bankrupt developers and under bridges along the freight railroad tracks that slice through western Queens, where dirty mattresses and work boots lay on the rocky ground one recent morning.
“The only reason we don’t go hungry is because there are people who offer us food,” Mr. Ruano said on a snowy Saturday as he clutched a cup of soup from a group of Pentecostals feeding day laborers at a park on Woodside Avenue.
With their isolation and day-to-day existence, the laborers are perhaps the most invisible and hardest-to-reach victims of the recession, advocates and city officials say.
The invisible comment got to me. I have lived in an immigrant neighborhood for a number of years and there is nothing invisible about this trend. There is a small plaza three blocks from casa mala where laborers who aren’t working hang out and more and more I have seen more people there, and yes sleeping.
It’s amazing to me really how visible day laborers are when they are allegedly peeing and drinking on “white streets” but in POC/immigrant neighborhoods, their not having a home is suddenly invisible.
CLERGY AND GRAMMY-AWARD WINNING ARTIST RALLY TO FREE JEAN Supporters Demand Release of Detained Immigrant Rights Leader on Hunger Strike
9:56 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration|New York City · 1 Comment
5 Jan 2010I know it’s cold outside people, pero if you are in the NYC area and are able to, please represent.
WHAT: On December 30th, ICE detained for deportation to Haiti Jean Montrevil, a green card-holding immigrant since 1986, father of four U.S. citizen children and renowned immigrant rights activist. Two days later, Montrevil, now held in Pennsylvania’s York County Prison, has begun a hunger fast to protest the deportation and detention system that tears families apart. At the rally, Montrevil’s children will demand from ICE that their father be released and clergy will join youth in vows of fasting and other forms of resistance until the government releases Montrevil and the immigration system is reformed.
WHO: Janiah Montrevil, Jean Montrevil’s 11-year-old daughter
Janay Montrevil, Jean Montrevil’s wife
Additional children of immigrants facing deportation or already deported
Rev. Robert B. Coleman, Chief Program Minister at The Riverside Church
Dan Zanes , Grammy Award winning Family Music Artist
Over 100 community supportersWHEN: Tuesday, January 5th, at 12:30pm
WHERE: Varick Street Detention Center
201 Varick Street (at Houston Street)
New York NY 10014
Call for submissions for 2010 Gay Latino Fiction Anthology
9:23 am By Maegan La Mala · Books|GLBT · 5 Comments
5 Jan 2010Call for submissions for 2010 Gay Latino Fiction Anthology
Deadline: January 11, 2010
Lethe Press’ new imprint for LGBT writers of color, Tincture, has announced a call for a gay Latino fiction anthology.
The anthology is seeking unpublished fiction (short stories, novel excerpts, short-short stories and flash fiction) by queer Latino writers to take the pulse of contemporary gay Latino literature, stories, experiences and perspectives. It will present a who’s who of queer Latino men writing fiction today. Authors of selected stories will be modestly compensated.
The collection is slated for publication in September 2010 and the submissions are due by January 11, 2010.
A summary and full description of the brief are given below.
Guidelines
• Unpublished short story or novel excerpt of up to 7500 words (No multiple submissions in these categories)
• Unpublished Flash Fiction or short-short stories (up to 3 stories no more than 1000 words per story in these two categories only)
• Non-genre-specific
• Gay centric theme or LGBT characters
• Written primarily in English (Stories translated into English from Spanish are acceptable)
• Thought-provoking and original
Submission procedure
• Submission deadline is 11:59 p.m. EST on January 11, 2010.
• Please submit work to LatinoLethePress@gmail.com.
• Include a brief bio (no more than 200 words) of the author as a cover page. In the top left corner of the cover page, include: submission title, category, author’s name, address, phone, e-mail and (website, if available).
• Submissions should be sent as a Microsoft word or RTF document.
• Format: Single sided, dbl. spaced, 12 pt. font, 1 inch margins.
• Please submit unpublished, publication ready pieces only.
• All submissions will be reviewed by the editor.
Tincture is an imprint of Lethe Press and publishes work by LGBT writers of color.
Martes Morning Musica : Rest in Peace Sandro
5 Jan 2010From BBC:
The singer, whose real name was Roberto Sanchez, began his rock career in the 1960s in the style of Elvis Presley.
He later developed into a ballad singer with a distinctive manner and a strong following across Latin America.
Among his hits were Mi amigo el Puma and Rosa, rosa. In all, he recorded dozens of albums and starred in 16 films.
He was the first Latin American artist to sing at Madison Square Garden in New York.Early in his career his dancing style, with its Elvis-style pelvic thrusts, scandalised conservative opinion, and his first TV performance triggered protests, Efe news agency reports.
Never was a fan pero I know he had a huge following.
Lhasa de Sela: Rest In Peace
7:12 pm By la Macha · Music|Women · 3 Comments
4 Jan 2010I was so sad to read this news:
Singer Lhasa de Sela passed away on January 1st 2010, after a twenty-one month battle with breast cancer. Lhasa, as she was known, released three albums. 1997′s La Llorona, 2003′s The Living Road and her self-titled release in April of 2009. She also performed at Amoeba Hollywood in 2004 just before I started working here.
She was born on September 27, 1972, to a Mexican father and an American mother. She spent much of her childhood traveling back and forth through Mexico and the U.S. This nomadic lifestyle attributed to her creativity and by the age of thirteen, she started singing in restaurants. In 1997, her album, La Llorona gave her much praise in Canada, where she located after moving out on her own. La Llorona was sung entirely in Spanish. The Living Road, her second album, made her an international star, as she sang in Spanish, French and English, easily flowing from one language to the next.
For those of you like me, who only came to Lhasa’s music and voice after she died, here is a sample of her music.
Ai, this music did nothing to ease the sadness–when will women of color (artists) stop dying so early?
Lupita, mi amor!
4 Jan 2010Ok–the Holidays are over! I hope you had some really peaceful restful ones. Now, it’s time to get back to work!
But don’t be sad, VL has some music to get you in the mood! Take it away Los Rockin’ Devils!
Hola!
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by Mamita Mala Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse Latin@ diaspora.
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